Welcome to the Problems at Work area

EMPLOYMENT

Unfair Dismissal People who have been employed for more than 12 months have a statutory right not to be dismissed unfairly.

Wrongful Dismissal Regardless of how long you have been employed, your employer must abide by the terms of your contract. If you are dismissed in breach of that contract, you have a right to claim. A Wrongful dismissal claim relates only to whether an employee’s contract has been correctly terminated in accordance with what the contract itself says. It is a kind of breach of contract claim and runs on usual common law principles of breach of contract, but in an employment environment. This kind of claim will often be made at the same time as an Unfair Dismissal case.

Redundancy If your job is made redundant, you are entitled to minimum compensation. This should be paid automatically by your employer, but if it is not, you have a right to claim it. The word redundancy is a technical term meaning that there is no longer a need for your company to employ someone to do the job that you do. It is a job and not a person that is made redundant, although the lack of a job to do inevitably means that the person goes with it. The law entitles you to a minimum amount of compensation (a Redundancy Payment) if this happens. This is based on how much you earned and how long you had worked with the company. Frequently companies will offer contractual redundancy payments in excess of the statutory minimum. If your company cannot pay a redundancy payment, the government steps in to pay it on their behalf. Finally, although a company can legitimately terminate an employee’s contract if the role has been made redundant, this is subject to the overall requirement that it is done “fairly”. If this is not the case, you will have a claim for unfair dismissal.

Maternity Rights The law protects pregnant women by ensuring that you are not discriminated against and by guaranteeing you paid time off work. You will be entitled to 26 weeks off and this period will be paid so long as you have been working with your employer for a minimum period of time. While you are pregnant, you are also protected against discrimination so your employer cannot treat you any differently than any other employee just because you are pregnant or have had a baby. Please see discrimination.

Compromise Agreement A compromise agreement is an agreement between employer and employee aimed at avoiding a legal action. You can enter into such an agreement but the agreement will only be valid if both you and your employer take independent legal advice. This questionnaire will help you to find a lawyer to give you advice on a proposed agreement.

Discrimination The law protects you if you are discriminated against due to your sex or race or because you suffer from a disability. Discrimination means that you are treated differently because there is something different about you. Often this difference puts you in a minority so it could be that you are a women, that you come from a particular racial background or that you have a particular disability. Employers are prevented from discriminating against you on ground of sex, race or disability. You can claim discrimination after you have left (often discrimination can be the reason for your employment ending), while you are still employed or even before you are employed if the reason that you are not offered a job is based on unlawful discrimination.

Unpaid Wages You can claim money that an employer or former employer owes you. There are specific ways of reclaiming money that has been deducted from your wages. An employer withholding wages from you must have specific authority to do so in your employment contract. It is common to see these kinds of authority allowing employers to withhold wages if, for example, you are away from work sick or if you go on holiday for longer than the period of paid holiday entitlement than you actually have.

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